The Forbidden Touch of Sanguardo

‘Goodnight, Mr Sanguardo,’ Celeste said, her smile flickering uncertainly.

For a moment she just went on standing there, looking at him.

Letting the impact he made on her retinas be absorbed into her.

‘Goodnight, Celeste,’ Rafael answered. He gave her a brief nod of farewell and got back into the car. The chauffeur slammed the door and went to the driver’s seat.

Celeste stepped inside the entrance hall, shut the door and went upstairs. Her heart-rate was raised, she knew.

It’s the stairs—just the stairs—because I’m hurrying too much!

But it was not the stairs. For as she turned on the light in her flat and went to the living room windows to pull the curtains, and looked down to the pavement at the car starting to pull into the road now that she was safely inside, she could feel her heart’s hectic beating.

And she knew exactly what had caused it.

Rafael Sanguardo …

His name echoed in her head. Circling around. Not letting her go.

JULIA JAMES lives in England with her family. Harlequin Mills & Boon^® were the first ‘grown-up’ books she read as a teenager, alongside Georgette Heyer and Daphne du Maurier, and she’s been reading them ever since. Julia adores the English and Celtic countryside, in all its seasons, and is fascinated by all things historical, from castles to cottages. She also has a special love for the Mediterranean—’The most perfect landscape after England!’—and considers both ideal settings for romance stories. In between writing she enjoys walking, gardening, needlework, baking extremely gooey cakes and trying to stay fit!

Recent titles by the same author:

PAINTED THE OTHER WOMAN

THE DARK SIDE OF DESIRE

FROM DIRT TO DIAMONDS

FORBIDDEN OR FOR BEDDING?

Did you know these are also available as eBooks? Visit www.millsandboon.co.uk

The

Forbidden Touch

of Sanguardo

Julia James

www.millsandboon.co.uk

To the utterly unforgettable holidays I’ve been privileged to have in Hawaii, which inspired the romantic setting for Celeste and Rafael. (And, yes, I did go on a star-gazing expedition—just like they did!!!!)

Contents

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

EPILOGUE

EXTRACT

CHAPTER ONE

CELESTE STOOD POISED at the head of the long curving flight of marble stairs that led down into the great hall below. It was already crowded with people in black tie and evening clothes, and servers were circulating with trays of champagne and canapés. Her fellow models for the evening were mingling in evening dress, prior to the charity fashion show that was about to start. She had arrived slightly late at the stately home in Oxfordshire that was the evening’s venue, but had seized the last-minute opportunity to be here tonight, well away from London—and from Karl Reiner.

Celeste’s expression tautened even just from her thinking about the man. She had known when she became the new face of Blonde Visage, one of the skincare ranges belonging to Reiner Visage—one for each complexion type—that Karl Reiner liked to have a more than professional relationship with the Reiner Visage models, but because he had been preoccupied with another ‘face’—Monique Silva—Celeste had felt it safe to allow herself to be tempted by the lucrative contract. Making good, regular money was, even after years in the fickle and intensely competitive modelling business, not something to turn down lightly.

A bleak expression lit the back of her eyes.

There was never, ever, any such thing as easy money—

She of all people should know that...

For now Karl had tired of Monique and was turning his attention to Celeste—and he assumed she would be as willing as Monique had been.

Celeste’s expression hardened. Karl Reiner could assume what he liked, but he would not get what he was after from her. Not even now he had flown in from New York this weekend specifically to pressure her to extend her contract—and pay the price he wanted her to pay for it.

Well, she would not be extending it. Yes, the money had been good, but these days making money was not the be all and end all of her preoccupations. A cold miasma seemed to touch at her skin. Not any more...

Her refusal was a message Karl Reiner didn’t want to hear, and he had demanded she make herself available to have dinner with him in London tonight. To evade him Celeste had been obliged to volunteer at a late hour for the charity fashion show that was shortly to take place in the grand salon.

Just thinking about Karl Reiner and what he wanted of her—what he thought she would provide—intensified the feeling of a cold miasma on her skin. It was penetrating into her like a toxic memory, fetid and foul...

With effort, she pushed it from her mind.

No! She would not think—would not remember.

She had dealt with those memories long ago! Paid the price for dealing with them—a price she was still paying, must always pay—and it was a price she paid because there was no alternative. Could never be.

All she could do was what she had done for years now—build her career, focus only on that. Be dedicated, hard-working.

On her own.

Always on her own.

For a last fleeting moment the bleakness showed in her eyes again. She knew far too well the price she was paying for those memories whose dank tendrils dragged across her flesh.

A stab of self-revulsion jabbed at her. Once she had lacerated herself with such stabs, but she gave herself a mental shake. She would not let anything drag her mind down such dark pathways. She was here tonight to do a job. One she had done a hundred times before.

Yet as she gathered her long skirts gracefully, preparing to descend into the thronged hall below, something stayed her for one last moment. She felt as if something were different tonight. As if she were poised on the edge of her familiar world. On the threshold of a new one.

Then, with a sharp, dismissive intake of breath, she took a step forward and started to move down the staircase. There was no new world awaiting her. There could not be.

She did not need the echo of that trailing miasma across her skin to tell her that...

* * *

Rafael Sanguardo stood, empty champagne glass loosely held in long fingers, and let his dark gaze rest on his opulently baroque surroundings, painted and gilded to profusion. It was an irony not lost on him that, as one of the sponsors of the charity, he should be a guest here—considering that it had been the exploited wealth of the Americas that had built this eighteenth-century splendour and that it had been the labour of his peon ancestors, albeit under Spanish colonial masters and not British ones, who had so signally contributed to this display of old-world wealth.

But now history had turned its wheel of fortune. In the global village of the twenty-first century it was the industrious entrepreneurship of former colonials who generated much of the world’s wealth—and Rafael Sanguardo knew he could count himself one of their number.

Thanks to his own intelligence, determination and drive, he had transformed himself in little more than a dozen years from an orphaned teenager living in one of the smallest of the string of countries stretching from Mexico to Colombia, via a philanthropic scholarship to a prestigious North American university, into a serial entrepreneur who had backed a succession of highly successful companies and who could now, had he so wished, have made his home in just such a palatial pile as the one he was tonight a guest in.

That was not his preference, however. He was footloose, preferring to rent apartments in London and New York and stay in hotels in whichever other countries he did business in. ‘Settling down’ was not on his agenda.

Not any more.

Madeline had seen to that.

Into his head stabbed the last words she had thrown at him. Mocking. Furious. Thwarted.

‘Why, Rafe, darling, what a puritan you are!’

But her taunting had masked anger, lashing out at him. Repelling him as much as what she had disclosed to him had repelled him.

Repelled him still...

He pulled his thoughts away. Madeline was history. Out of his life. And she should be out of his head, too. She was not worth even the memory...

There was only one thing Madeline was worth—had only ever been worth—and that was what was most precious to her.

Money.

Rafael’s mouth tightened. His eyes darkened. Well, now Madeline had all the money she craved—but money was all she had. Even though she had once craved more. Memory darkened his expression again. She had once craved him—craved everything that had once been between them.

Their affair had lit up like a torch between them. It had been a match that had seemed to be ideally cast. He the self-made, darkly handsome Latino multimillionaire, she the British flame-haired British beauty whose business abilities had made her as rich as him. They had been a wealthy, glamorous couple, cutting a swathe wherever they went.

Then it had ended.

Like an unwelcome replay, he saw the scene inside his head yet again.

Madeline was looking at him. Looking at him with her almond-shaped emerald eyes from where she lay on the bed, her fabulous auburn hair tumbling sensuously around her naked shoulders. Her lush, peaked breasts were on show for him. So was the rest of her curved, enticing body. She lay, lounging back on the pillows. Alluring. Seductive.

‘Now tell me you don’t want me, Rafe, darling,’ she purred.

She let her thighs slacken, easing her hand sensually along the divide between her legs.

He walked to the bedroom door. Turned to look at her. Still repelled.

‘Be gone by the time I get back,’ he told her.

Then he left.

He heard her laughter—that rich, mocking laughter—infused with what he knew was a jibing anger at him for his rejection of her, following him as he shut the front door of his apartment behind him.

It tried to follow him still, that mocking, jibing, angry laughter, as he knew she wanted it to.

But its power was gone.

Just as Madeline had gone. Out of his life—totally.

Now even the thought of Madeline repelled him. As did everything about her...her looks, her attitude, her ambition, her values. Everything.

A hovering waiter pulled him back to where he was, and with a slight smile of thanks Rafael placed his glass on the extended tray. As he turned back, something caught his eye.

Someone.

Walking down the sweeping staircase with an aura about her that made his gaze focus piercingly. Taking in everything about her.

Pale beauty. Hair caught in a chignon the colour of champagne at the nape of her swan-like neck. Her face was in profile. Perfect profile. As perfect as her tall, slender body, sheathed in a single-shouldered ecru gown that moulded slight breasts, draped slender hips and dropped down long, long legs to skim slim ankles, revealed by the draping of her skirts, around which snaked the clasp of her heeled evening shoes.

She must surely be one of the models, he realised. Her height, her slenderness, the way she held herself, the way she wore her clearly couture gown—all indicated that. As she reached the foot of the stairs she blended into the throng and was lost to his view. He craned his head a moment, seeking her, but could not see her.

A sense of frustration at her disappearance caught at him. Then he stilled, frowning for a quite different reason. A jolt of realisation.

This was the first woman who had caught his attention since he had severed all links with Madeline—

Oh, plenty of women had sought his attention—he was well used to that—but in the grim aftermath of Madeline none had been of any interest to him.

So what is it about this one?

Yet even as the question formed he knew it was redundant. He could answer it immediately.

She is nothing at all like Madeline!

Madeline’s richly hued flashy beauty and her egoistic temperament had demanded that everyone look at her. The pale girl descending the staircase had looked as cool as Madeline had been fiery.

But there was more to the difference than looks, he sensed. Madeline would have descended the grand staircase like a drama queen, wanting everyone to gaze at her. To admire and envy her. To desire her.

This pale blonde girl had slipped down the steps as quietly as a ghost—as if she were not quite part of this world, as if she wanted no eyes drawn to her. Odd, he mused, in someone who was a model. If, of course, she was one.

Well, he thought, impatient to see her again, if she were, he had better go and take his seat and find out.

One thing he knew with certainty: whoever the pale, elusive blonde was, he wanted to see her again. His dark eyes glinted. Finally he’d seen a woman to spark his interest—an interest he definitely wanted to pursue. Would that interest survive acquaintance with her? Or would getting to know her put him off, despite that incredible pale beauty of hers?

Will she prove as flawed as Madeline?

That was the question that haunted him.

CHAPTER TWO

THE MUSIC WAS starting up—glitteringly baroque Vivaldi to suit the era of the house—and in well-practised order the models issued out onto the runway constructed down the centre of the long salon.

The first gown was the same one the models had worn while mingling with the guests, and Celeste was glad of it. It was exactly the kind of gown she would have chosen for herself, had she been a guest. Flattering, but revealing nothing more than a bare shoulder, and in one of the pale colours that she liked. Another model had once told her she must like disappearing into the background. Celeste had only smiled slightly. But the girl had been right, for all that.

Muted, understated, discreet—those were the fashion watchwords she adhered to. And one more, too.

Modest.

Not for her, in her own clothes, plunging necklines or thigh-skimming hemlines. Even on the beach she preferred a one-piece.

Now, as she swished along the runway, she felt the tension that had assailed her as she’d stood at the top of the stairs evaporate. Years of experience as a model made this kind of tightly choreographed display second nature to her, and she walked with assurance and poise until, at the foot of the runway, she paused to reverse her direction.

And froze.

Dark, long-lashed eyes, focussed on her. A shadowed face with lean cheeks, incised features. A mouth with deep lines around it. A sculpted jawline. Night-dark hair.

For a timeless moment the impression carved itself into her vision. Then, with a jolt, she knew she must start walking again. Jerkily, she paced back up to the head of the runway and was swept offstage into the melee of the changing area, to emerge minutes later in a vivid scarlet evening gown. All the way down the runway she was conscious of the man sitting at the far end. Wondering whether he’d be watching her.

Hectically, her thoughts tumbled inside her head. She’d been eyed up often enough in her time as a model—and even though she didn’t like it she never let it affect her.

So why had this man’s regard so affected her? Why had it impacted on her in the few seconds she’d had to register it? What was so different about it? About him...?

As she neared the end of the runway she steeled herself for that dark, penetrating gaze—which didn’t come. As she glanced briefly in his direction she saw that his attention was on his mobile phone. He was tapping in a text, long legs extended, completely ignoring her.

Immediately she felt her tension drop. She turned, skilfully manoeuvring her skirts, and plunged back up the runway. So much for that! she thought, with a wry dart of self-mockery.

Had she turned her head again, however, she might have felt differently.

Rafael’s eyes had lifted from his phone and were settled, instead, on her retreating form. They went on watching until she disappeared. Then, and only then, did he resume his tapping.

He found, however, that his mind was not on his emails.

* * *

The show was over, the applause was dying away and guests were heading off for the buffet supper awaiting them in the dining room across the entrance hall.

Rafael got to his feet. There was a sense of purpose about him. The models would be mingling with the guests again and he wanted to find her—stake his claim before anyone else could be as drawn to her pale, haunting beauty as he was.

But as his eyes searched the crowded dining room it came to him that she simply was not there. The other models were—but not the one he wanted to see. He frowned. So where was she? He crossed the hallway back into the salon, where the runway was being dismantled by workmen. Still no sign of her.

He saw that a glass door to the side was open, and slipped through on impulse. He found himself out on a terrace and walked down it to the end. Turning the corner, he saw gardens stretching out before him. Steps swept down to the level of the lawns.

A figure had paused at the edge. A female figure, her evening gown pale in the dim light, craning her neck upwards. But she wasn’t looking back at the mansion. She was looking up at the night sky.

Rafael’s dark eyes glinted in the starlight and he started to walk down the steps towards her.

* * *

Celeste was gazing upwards, rapt. It was a glorious starry night! In London stars were, at best, dim and hazy. But here in the countryside they were bright and vivid, the mighty sweep of the Milky Way clear in the heavens. So unimaginably distant...

Once she had wanted only to be taken up amongst them, leaving the earth far, far behind...

‘The ancient Chinese believed that the Milky Way was the source of the Yellow River.’

The voice came from behind her.

Celeste swirled round. There was little light, but she did not need light to tell her who this was. It was the man who had been looking at her as she’d walked along the runway. The man who had made her aware of him as no man ever had...

He was heading towards her. She could not see his features, only his height, his strolling elegance as he came to stand beside her. She heard the deep, accented timbre of his voice as he spoke again. Felt her nerve-endings start to send messages to her she did not want to feel!

‘They have a legend,’ he went on, ‘that says two lovers were cruelly parted by their parents and placed on either side of the Milky Way—the galactic river. We see them as stars, forever gazing at each other.’

He was looking at her as he spoke. Taking in her frozen stance, the sudden tension in her face. She looked, he thought, as if she was going to bolt—a reaction he found unusual in a woman. Long experience had taught him that women welcomed his attentions.

Madeline certainly had.

But she is not Madeline.

And that was what he wanted, he reminded himself. For her to be utterly different. So it was good that she was reacting as she was, wasn’t it? But whatever the reason for her radiating wariness on all frequencies he wanted to dispel it.

‘It’s incredible, isn’t it?’ he said, keeping his tone conversational. ‘To think of the vast distances of the heavens. Our galaxy is just one of billions, each with billions of stars.’ He frowned slightly. ‘Some of the stars we think of as stars are galaxies themselves. Andromeda is our closest, and it is...’ He searched the sky with his eyes.

‘It’s there,’ Celeste heard herself saying. ‘In the Andromeda constellation, between Pegasus and Cassiopeia. The galaxy is M31—Messier body thirty-one—but it’s not actually the closest galaxy to us, only to the Milky Way overall. It’s going to merge with the Milky Way eventually, and form a giant elliptical galaxy in a few billion years.’

She pointed jerkily upwards, mentally castigating herself for gabbling about galaxies and constellations, but other than marching away it had seemed the safest thing to do.

Though ‘safe’ was the very last thing she felt...

Her nerve-endings were firing in a way that she had never before experienced.

Rafael followed her gaze, then glanced across at her. Wanting to look at her. Wanting her to look at him. Wanting her to speak again.

He smiled appreciatively. ‘You’re very knowledgeable,’ he remarked.

‘I like stars,’ she answered, in the same abrupt, jerky manner. ‘They’re very far away.’

Even as she spoke she started. Why did I say that? Why am I standing here talking to him—letting him talk to me?

And why was the deep, accented timbre of his voice reaching into her? Disturbing her...firing all her nerves at high pitch...

‘Is that a commendation?’ he asked dryly.

‘Yes,’ she answered.

As if she’d realised it was a strange thing to say, he saw her give a tiny shake of her head. As she did so, he saw her change. She dipped her head, tightened her grip on her skirts. Getting a grip, belatedly, on the situation. A situation she was going to terminate right now. Because she did not let situations like this arise.

But there’s never been a situation like this...no man has ever made me react like this!

Which made it all the more imperative that she get away from him—right now! Stop this before it started.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I must go back inside.’

Her voice had changed, too. It was clipped now, and quite impersonal.

Distant.

‘Permit me to escort you.’ Rafael’s voice was smooth.

She did not hesitate. ‘Thank you—no.’

Her tone was decisive, and before his eyes she turned and walked back up the steps. He looked after her.

From chatting about stars to cutting him dead—all in under a minute.

No, nothing like Madeline at all...

* * *

Celeste gained the salon and walked rapidly across it. Her heart-rate was up, and it was not because of her rapid ascent of the exterior steps. What on earth had she just gone and done? Standing there with that man, talking about astronomy! She’d gone out to the gardens for two reasons—to take advantage of the clear night sky and to delay having to mix socially. Because over supper she would inevitably see that man again.

The man who had come in search of her.

Because of course that was what he’d been doing! She wasn’t an idiot—no one struck up a conversation about galaxies with a lone female if they weren’t trying to chat her up! Then, to make her heart-rate race even more, a mortifying thought struck her. Had he thought she was standing out there stargazing in order to deliberately invite him to talk to her?

She felt her cheeks flush. Well, it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter either way. Because from now on she was going to avoid him totally until she could decently get away back to Oxford and the hotel room she’d booked. Staying well out of London and away from Karl Reiner for as long as possible.

But she didn’t want to think about the repulsive Karl Reiner. And she didn’t want to think about the man who had set her nerve-endings firing, elevated her heart-rate. A man who did not repel her.

Who attracted her—

No! A little twist of bitterness clenched inside her. What did it matter if, however inexplicably, he attracted her? It didn’t matter! It couldn’t matter.

It could never matter...

A dull, familiar stab jabbed at her.

I am what my past has made me and nothing can change that—nothing!

And men—all men—could be nothing of her present now.

Face set, she gained the dining room, forcing herself to take a breath—to assume the appearance, if nothing else, of calm. She made her way to one of the buffet tables around the edge, glad to see Zoe, a fellow model, there. They helped themselves to some undressed salad and a slice of chicken each.

‘So,’ said Zoe invitingly as they started to eat their meagre portions, ‘what are you going to do about the guy who couldn’t take his eyes off you? Has he made a move on you already?’

Celeste tensed. ‘No,’ she lied, trying to sound nonchalant.

‘Shame,’ said the other girl. ‘I’d go for him. Looks and dosh! Rafael Sanguardo. South American. He’s a zillionaire investor. Used to hang out with that glitzy redhead on the Top Ten Rich Women list—Madeline Walters. Hotshot and hot totty! She made a fortune for herself and headed for the States to make another pile of dough. Of course...’ she threw a sly glance at Celeste ‘...you’ve got Karl Reiner panting around after you, haven’t you? Now he’s through with Monique Silva. Mind you,’ she added, ‘I know which man I’d rather have in bed beside me! Señor Tall, Dark and Very Handsome Sanguardo! Creepy Karl wouldn’t get a look-in!’ She drew breath. ‘Well, I’d better network. Plenty of useful contacts out there—and loads of loaded guys! And standing here by all this food is torture. See you!’

She sauntered off, leaving Celeste to her supper and her thoughts.

Rafael Sanguardo...

The name glided through her head. She’d never heard of him, but from the way Zoe had talked about him it sounded as if he was on the ‘Mr Available and Rich’ list that a lot of models made it their business to know about. She speared a sliver of chicken with decided resolve. Rafael Sanguardo was none of her business, and he would stay that way.

‘May I help you to something more from the buffet?’

The deep, faintly accented voice addressing her was familiar.

And very unwelcome.

She turned. It was Rafael Sanguardo.

Celeste felt herself tense automatically. But not just because he was the one person here she wanted to avoid. For the first time she was seeing him in full light, rather than dim glimpses. And everything she’d glimpsed about him was overwhelmingly reinforced. He was, just as Zoe had flippantly called him, Mr Tall, Dark and Very Handsome! But it was not smooth, playboy-style looks that he possessed. His face was lean, with a tough-looking jawline, high cheekbones and a strong nose. But it wasn’t those features that held her. It was the eyes.

They were dark—incredibly dark—with a hawkish look to them, and they were resting on her with an expression in them that instantly made her breathless.

How? How is this happening? she thought with a hollowing of her stomach. It never happened! Men could look her over and she’d be immune to it! Immune the way she had to be. But this man—somehow—was having this extraordinary effect on her, and she didn’t know why.

All she knew, with a surge of intense self-preserving urgency, was that she had to stop it happening. Had to stop looking at him—stop looking at the way his long, lean body, darkly clad in what she knew must be a hand-tailored tuxedo, easily topped six feet, the way his DJ moulded his shoulders. His gleaming white dress shirt performed the same office for his torso, telling her that his physique was as honed as the planes of his face.

He was addressing her again, in that deep, accented voice that did things to her she did not want it to do! What had he just said? She had to reply—say something, anything—then walk away! Food—he asked you about food! Do you want any? That was it.

With effort, she found a brief reply. ‘Thank you, but this is enough,’ she managed to say.

An eyebrow quirked over the incredibly dark eyes that looked as if they were hewn from some ancient, volcanic rock. Basalt, she thought, or obsidian...darker than slate.

‘It doesn’t look enough for a sparrow,’ he murmured. The dark eyes glanced at her. ‘Fortunately you don’t appear to have the starved, size-zero look about you that so many models have.’

Celeste could hear condemnation of excessive thinness in his voice. ‘Models have to be thin!’ she was stung into retorting. She was not objecting to his criticism of size-zero models, but to the way his eyes had washed over her. The effect that slow wash had had on her...

‘It’s shamefully perverse for women in the developed world to ape those who go hungry from necessity, not fashion!’ he returned sharply.

She took a breath, making herself answer honestly. ‘You are right,’ she admitted.

For a moment she let her eyes meet his in acknowledgement of the truth of what he had just said. It was a mistake. For one endless moment she had the strangest sensation that she was drowning—drowning in a deep, fathomless ocean. Then, with an effort, she pulled her gaze away. Found that she was trembling with the effort.

‘I’m sorry—that was very blunt of me,’ she heard him respond. ‘Though it is a pity that you will not try some of these richer foods.’ He indicated the lavish spread in front of them.

Celeste glanced at them, and then back at the man who was so disturbing her. ‘They do look delicious,’ she allowed. ‘But I mustn’t.’

‘You won’t be tempted?’ he said.

There was a trace of humour now in his accented voice. A trace that did yet more disturbing things to her. As did the glint in his eyes that told her it was more than food he wanted her to be tempted by.

She gave a decisive shake of her head. Time to stop this—right now.

‘No,’ she replied. Her voice was polite, but firm. She put down her now empty plate. Looked back at him. Made herself look at him but not react to him. Made herself say in a polite, social voice, using just the sort of tone she might use to anyone at all, ‘Do please excuse me, but I have to circulate and show off this dress.’

She gave a smile—brief, polite, perfunctory. But this time she did not meet his eyes. Instead, she turned away, tall and graceful, and threaded her way into the throng.